Digital video streams comprise a plurality of video frames which are to be displayed in sequence. Generally, the higher the quality of the video streams, the greater the size, in bytes, of the corresponding video stream. In order to reduce the required transmission bandwidth or the required storage space, video streams are compressed according to different compression standards.
Video coding is used to compress video data in both temporal and spatial domains. There are several existing video coding standards and research is ongoing for new video coding standards. These standards offer various methods and tools to provide effective video compression. In video coding more than one picture buffer is needed for the video coding device to take advantage of temporal prediction using previous pictures. Since pictures are coded out of order and multiple reference frames are used in the latest video coding standards, the video coding device should buffer the picture buffers and only send it to the application for display according to the rules set in the video coding standards for a particular video format. Generally, the memory used for the picture buffers can be large when supporting high resolutions like high definition (HD) and ultra-high definition (UHD), especially in the latest video coding standards such as H.264, HEVC etc.
The existing video coding techniques do not address the problem of optimal usage of a picture buffer's memory by the picture buffer so that the memory is used only if it is necessary. The existing video coding techniques also do not address parallelizing post processing operation for the picture buffers, which are decoded but not displayed. Further, the existing video coding techniques do not address reusing a picture buffer for the post processing operation.
In view of the foregoing, there is a need for a solution that addresses the above mentioned drawbacks and provides two way communication between the application and the video coding device which will aid in optimally making use of the memory resources.
The above mentioned shortcomings, disadvantages and problems are addressed herein as will be understood by reading and studying the following specification.